It's time to heal the great Zinfandel divide

WINE

Published 4:00 am, Sunday, January 23, 2011

Barrels of zinfandel are piled high deep within the historic cellar of Ridge Vineyards on Wednesday, February 17, 2010.

Barrels of zinfandel are piled high deep within the historic cellar of Ridge Vineyards on Wednesday, February 17, 2010.

Photo: Chad Ziemendorf, Special To The Chronicle

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Photo: Katy Raddatz, The Chronicle

It's time to heal the great Zinfandel divide

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If you fancy yourself a wine person, you could be forgiven for thinking that Zin lovers are from a slightly different universe. And if you're a Zin person, right now you might be thinking: Get bent, wine guy.

So goes this nation's cultural divide - of course, I speak of that between Zin fanatics and the rest of us, nowhere more evident than at the Zinfandel Advocates & Producers festival coming to San Francisco on Thursday. For Zin lovers, ZAP would be what happened if the spring of Lourdes started spouting wine (at $70 per glug).

To celebrate its 20th anniversary, the festival is being headlined by Nadia G., host of the Cooking Channel's "Bitchin' Kitchen." Ms. G. is touted as Julia Child for the Internet-enabled, but comes across more like a mashup of Amanda Congdon and Guy Fieri.

That choice is no surprise for those who know ZAP's largesse (it now stretches across two Fort Mason pavilions and welcomes 8,000 people) and rowdy swagger.

Zinland has become dominated by this ethos - one that advances it as the people's wine, as the one grape not trammeled by the pinky-lifting set. Such has been its selling point for years, all the way back to Ravenswood kicking poor white Zinfandel - a gateway wine for millions - to the curb and wrapping itself in a leather-chap-wearing motto: "No Wimpy Wines."

What's the problem? For one, any wine put forward at $40 a bottle is no longer the people's wine.

Plus, amid that swagger, Zin's true populism has been lost. Once it was embraced by gulpers and intellectuals alike. Thomas Keller claimed it as his favorite. Wine lists at such supposed anti-California-wine venues as Chez Panisse and Nopa feature a healthy sampling of Zins. (Rafanelli, Sky and Scherrer were among recent picks.) Ridge's Paul Draper and Sacramento retailer Darrell Corti were outspoken defenders of its charms. But rare is the intellectual who'll cop to Zin love nowadays.

"I actually have a major issue with a lot of Zinfandel that is produced in California," says Ehren Jordan. Among other things, Jordan makes wine for Turley Wine Cellars, poster child for exuberantly fruited single-vineyard Zins.

What gives? I'd argue the divide is one of taste, both in culture and flavor. There have been too many rewards for picking Zinfandel with fruit so shriveled that even after triage it remains sugary, then slathering it with oak. Zinfandel's beauty is a bounty of fresh berry fruit and spice. Instead, too many leave the impression of raisins and bacon bits. My summation of one recent bottle? "Like swimming in the River Glop."

It need not be this way. Plenty of nuanced Zinfandel remains; amid the aisles of ZAP you can enjoy Dashe Cellars, Ridge Vineyards and Seghesio, to name a quick few. Mike Dashe may describe the event as "a Grateful Dead concert mixed with a Harley-Davidson convention," but he credits it with introducing his first vintage to accounts like Chez Panisse and the French Laundry. So his optimism endures.

"I think some of the exuberance for that super-ripe, almost overripe, fruit is not there anymore," Dashe says. "I really think that people are tired of that."

In that spirit, here are three things to love about Zinfandel - and three that seriously need repair.

What's lovable: The fruit. If you believe California wine's strong point is delicious fruit, Zinfandel - as the closest thing the state has to an official grape - is the essence of that notion.

But highlighting the classic flavors of thin-skinned Zinfandel is a more delicate proposition than it might seem.

"Zinfandel is closer to, and we've always treated it, more like Pinot Noir than Cabernet," says Jay Heminway, whose Green & Red label has been producing Zin from Napa's Chiles Valley since the late 1970s.

What's not: The ripeness. Zin is a little sugar machine; even its most restrained advocates insist on taking it north of 14 percent alcohol (often north of 15) to fully express the flavors.

But it's a quick flip from ripe to raisins. That latter is where too many wines land, partly because of fears of even a single underripe grape on the vine, but also because it's difficult to accurately gauge the ripeness of Zin vineyards. When fruit hits the cellar, the potential alcohol content can be above 16 percent. You'd think that would concern more winemakers, but treating Zin as the Incredible Hulk of grapes ("Hulk smash!") has been rewarding to many, if not all.

"The trend of all varietals has been to make everything bigger, bigger, bigger," laments Alex Davis of Porter Creek Vineyards, whose violet-scented Zin treads that elusive line between exuberant and classy. "They're trying to make everything taste like Zinfandel, and they're trying to make Zinfandel taste like Port."

What's lovable: The history. Which is, quite simply, the history of California. Despite its Croatian heritage and much-disputed arrival here, Zinfandel has endured since at least the mid-19th century. If most wine from that era is enshrined in dusty tomes, Zin vines from the 1800s continue to thrive. (Sneer at white Zin if you like, but that's partially what kept many old Zin vineyards alive in the days when the grape was unloved.)

Drinking Zin, then, is a living tribute to the continuity of California wine. Good luck saying that about Pinot.

What's not: All that makeup. Can ebullient fruit truly be Zin's selling point when it's so often driven into the realm of Raisinets?

Too often a formula amends that with astonishing doses of oak. A sampling of notes from one recent tasting: "Chocolate fudge," "hickory and bacon smoke," "charcoal briquettes." Oak does a double disservice: It both masks Zin's true beauty and drives up the price of an otherwise more affordable wine.

Consider Turley. While the label has become a pincushion for Zin's blowsy tendencies, it's actually far more restrained nowadays; alcohols can still top 16 percent, but the flavors are clean. And there's usually less than 20 percent new oak - which is funny, because Jordan often gets complaints about oakiness.

"There's a side of Zinfandel that's like, 'I'll out-big you,' " he says. "I didn't realize we were engaged in Mr. Universe here. I wanted to make something I could drink."

Frankly, this is a betrayal of the virtue of antique vines - and when I speak of old vines, I mean planted before President Obama was born, not before Miley Cyrus was born.

What's lovable: The lack of snootiness. Zin doesn't require deep thought or aging, although both can improve it. Jordan appropriately considers Zin "the antithesis" of "the pretension of Cabernet" - specifically the monied Cabernet crowd of Napa Valley (where, let's note, he makes his wine).

What's not: Fake populism. Aside from high prices for too many bottles, there's a discomforting anti-intellectualism amid the Zin posse. The grape's success has been hinged on a lot of hard work from a lot of smart people. Dumbing it down does a disservice both to the grape and its history.

But that's sometimes hard to see amid the costumes, tchotchkes and big talk.

"You walk from table to table, and people have a shtick," says Cathy Seghesio of Seghesio Family Vineyards, a ZAP regular. (Her husband Peter is the group's vice president.) "That's never going to be us, but we have a contribution to make."

From the notebook

The Zinfandel Advocates & Producers festival runs Thursday though Saturday in San Francisco. More information at zinfandel.org.

Here are six favorite recent Zins that treat the grape with proper respect:

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